What We're Listening To

What We're Listening To

The full-length self-titled debut album ventures further into effervescent rock anchored with a down-home aesthetic. The songs ebb and flow with optimism, traversing emotional and musical landscapes. Their music explores the ever-shifting search for self, from the energetic indie-rock interludes to the lonesome guitar strums, always asking the question: Is home a place or is it the people in your life?

Named after the Mac command also used as a mathematical equation to show change, formed while studying fine art at university, and prone to throwing in the odd geometric reference within their lyrics, there are signs that Cambridge-based quartet Alt-J might be a little bit too clever for their own good.

While the marketing insanity for Pirates of the Caribbean II continues to echo in the popular mindset, this whopping yet seemingly near-underground document -- born from the minds of the film's director, Gore Verbinski, his pal Johnny Depp, and Anti-Epitaph label boss (and Verbinski buddy) Brett Gurewitz -- may end up as a lasting contribution to the populace at large without them even knowing it. Any way you hoist it, Rogue's Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs, and Chanteys is a treasure trove of the beautiful, the weird, the arcane, and the dangerous.

The angular, intricate, and intelligent compositions of Hospitality signal a sophisticated new pop voice. Singer Amber Papini's idiosyncratic songwriting coupled with the band's rich arrangements on their self-titled debut explore youth, New York, and the bittersweet commingling of past and present in a way that feels just right, right now.

Musgraves showed an intelligent, careful writing style that is as pointed as it is poignant, and even though the song seems to skewer small-town country life, it does it without malice or agenda, and is really more just telling it true than anything else, a trait that ought to be treasured in Nashville but usually isn't. Musgraves has a sense of humor, too, and all of these traits add up to make Same Trailer Different Park more than a collection of songs just aiming for the country charts.